After
losing multiple appeals and being rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court
twice, Mumia Abu-Jamal finally got his official reprieve this week.

The
case of cop-killer Mumia
Abu-Jamal continues to draw the attention of the radical left on
college campuses and some denizens of U.S. newsrooms, according to a
report appearing on a well-respected legal watchdog group's Internet
blog.

Pliant
courts and a powerful leftist movement delayed justice long enough to
get a convicted cop-murderer a death-penalty reprieve more than a decade
after his lengthy appeals process had already been exhausted, according
to the Judicial Watch blogger.

The
outrageous case involves a member of the radical Black Panthers, Mumia
Abu-Jamal, who murdered a police officer (Daniel Faulkner) in Philadelphia
three decades ago. Abu-Jamal, who claims to be the victim of a racist
legal system, was sentenced to death by the jury that convicted him
in 1982.

After
losing multiple appeals and being rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court
twice, Abu-Jamal finally got his official reprieve this week.

Prosecutors
in Philadelphia officially abandoned their decades-long pursuit of execution
for the cop-killer, leaving him to rot in jail for the rest of his life.
In 2001, two years after Abu-Jamal had exhausted a lengthy appeals process,
a Philadelphia federal judge named William Yohn threw out the death
sentence citing problems with the jury instructions and verdict form
in the trial.

Judge
Yohn, appointed by the first President Bush in 1991, said jurors should
have been able to consider mitigating circumstances during sentencing
even if they did not unanimously agree that those circumstances even
existed. Then he ordered prosecutors to, either conduct a new sentencing
hearing, or instead sentence Abu-Jamal to life imprisonment since the
conviction itself was never questioned.

Decades
have passed, many of the witnesses are either dead or unreachable so
Philadelphia’s District Attorney decided not to proceed with a
new sentencing hearing, according to the Judicial Watch blog report.

“There
has never been a doubt in my mind that Mumia Abu-Jamal shot and killed
Officer Faulkner, and I believe the appropriate sentence was handed
down in 1982,” said Philly D.A. Seth Williams, who happens to
be black.

Williams
points out that every reviewing court has ruled that Abu-Jamal’s
trial was fair and the verdict of guilt sound. The evidence was overwhelming
and the mixed-race jury didn’t take long to reach a verdict for
the 1981 murder. Three credible eyewitnesses testified that Abu Jamal
was the killer.

The
bullet in the officer’s brain came from Abu Jamal's gun, which
had five empty cartridges when investigators found it. Court documents,
testimony and other relevant facts about the case are available on a
web site in the officer's memory.

From
prison Abu-Jamal has been a hero to a powerful left-wing movement—including
journalists—
that has fought for his release. His backers include famous Hollywood
celebrities and well-known activists and civil rights groups such as
the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
and Amnesty International. President Obama’s ousted “Green
Czar” (Van Jones) is also among the vocal Abu-Jamal supporters.

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Reacting
to this week’s reprieve, a San Francisco-based group (appropriately
called Prison
Radio) that claims Abu-Jamal is a political prisoner insists he
be freed, asserting that he’s innocent.
To make its case the group includes a statement from the great South
African activist (Desmond Tutu) who earned international accolades for
opposing apartheid. Because life in prison is yet another form of death
sentence, Tutu says, justice will not be served. “Based on even
a minimal following of international human rights standards, Mumia must
now be released,” Tutu said.